Travel sector participants have expressed disapproval of Emirates’ move to allow dollar ticket sales on Nigerian routes before the airline’s October 1 service resumes.
All of the fare inventories on the Emirates website are priced in dollars, and the costs are competitive when compared to those of rival airlines.
The National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) and Topaz Travels and Tours’ managing director and CEO, Susan Akporaiye, stated: “The news that Emirates has opened bookings is supposed to be good news but it is not because it’s in dollars. This means that people have to buy dollars in the black market to be able to pay for Emirates tickets, thereby putting more pressure on the dollars, which will result in scarcity and fare increase.”
Emirates previously declared that it would start up again in Nigeria on October 1, 2024, with a daily flight between Lagos and Dubai, providing passengers with additional options and connections from the country’s biggest metropolis to and via Dubai.
A Boeing 777-300ER will be used to run the service. The return flight, EK784, leaves Lagos at 1730 and lands in Dubai at 0510 hours the following day. EK783 will depart Dubai at 0945 and arrive in Lagos at 1520 hours.
Industry Expert, Olumide Ohunayo, Director of Research at Zenith Travels, told BrandSpur national news desk that there’s a chance Emirates The system was opened, and it might take some time to configure into naira. Alternatively, they might have introduced dollars and provided the most affordable fares.
According to him: “Checking the Australian route from here, I found out that Emirates has the cheapest fares. If it is in dollars and I have to use naira to buy dollars and it is cheaper for me in naira, I’ll still go and pick the one that is dollars. It is a bit tricky. It may be a marketing gimmick. I would rather wait for October 1, when they say they are going to commence, and see what happens.
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“They can’t afford to go against the travel agents. This is an airline that even without the Nigerian route, they are profitable. They may be the first airline that says they will go against the norm and bypass travel agents which I hope they won’t. They have been able to prove to everyone in the industry that they are a strong force without the Nigerian market,” he added.
Ohunayo made a suggestion that Emirates should have a plan to be successful in the Nigerian market if they could turn a big profit when it stopped flying into Nigeria.
He noted that the trapped monies and Emirates’ fuel suppliers’ insistence on receiving payment in dollars, while other airlines were paying their suppliers in naira, were among the reasons Emirates withdrew from the Nigerian market.
Speaking further: “These are some of the things they should renegotiate before returning. How can we even ask them to charge in naira if suppliers are charging for the services they provide in dollars? If you ask them to charge in naira, then it should apply to government agencies. When you are coming to equity, come with clean hands.”
According to data from the BrandSpur national news desk, a return economy class ticket on KLM from Lagos to London Heathrow cost N2.3 million, while tickets on Air France, Ethiopian Airlines, Egypt Air, and Virgin Atlantic ranged from N2.2 million to N3.2 million.
Royal Air Maroc charged N5.7 million for a return business class ticket from Lagos to London Heathrow; Air Peace charged N6.5 million; Turkish Airlines charged N6.9 million; Egypt Air charged N7.1 million; and Qatar Airways charged N7.4 million.
Emirates charged $1,130, or N1.83 million, for a round-trip economy class ticket from Lagos to London Heathrow and $4,290, or slightly more than N6.9 million. Emirates tickets from Lagos to Dubai in economy class cost $987. This will cost N1.59 million at the current travel currency rate of N1,620 to the dollar. Emirates charges $4,418 (about N7.1m) for a return business class ticket from Lagos to Dubai.
Turkish Airlines charged N1.63 million for a return economy class ticket from Lagos to Dubai, Kenya Airways N1.17 million, Egypt Air 1.3 million, Qatar Airways N1.3 million, Ethiopian Airlines N1.5 million, and Emirates N1.7 million.
Egypt Air, Kenya Airways, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, and Emirates all charged N4.1 million, N4.8 million, N5 million, and N8 million, respectively, for a return business class ticket from Lagos to Dubai.
The current president of NANTA, Yinka Folami, stated that even with the resumption of ticket sales, the visa regime remains extremely restrictive: “The restrictions are still high. I expect that an airline like Emirates, having left the market for about two years, will come in with an entry strategy. As a Nigerian, I’m worried that Emirates is charging in dollars.
“Our legal tender is still the naira and my personal experience is that if we keep denominating dollars in Nigeria, it will keep putting pressure on the naira. That’s the way I see it,” he added.
However, he states that, in addition to the price of the ticket, Nigeria is a sovereign that should be honoured, and that he would prefer a scenario in which the nation’s legal tender is honoured.
